These adorable pigs are trained to sit like puppies by Scots animal lover

13:18, 17 Sep 2015

ByScotland Now

15-STONE pigs Gigi and Coco have learned to sit like dogs, roll over, beg for treats and even offer their snouts to owner Penny Kennedy for kisses.

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Penny Kennedy has trained her pig Gigi to sit on command

THIS may sound like a porky pie – but an animal lover has trained her two 15-stone pigs to sit like puppies .

Sisters Coco and Gigi also roll over on command - and even offer their snouts to owner Penny Kennedy for a kiss.

Mrs Kennedy, 61, said: ‘It was really easy to get them to sit - it only took a few days. I just held a treat above their noses, said ‘sit’ and pushed their bottoms down but now they will do it just with the word. I was absolutely thrilled. They are hugely intelligent.

‘If I had more time, I’m sure I could teach them absolutely anything.’

Designer and illustrator Mrs Kennedy, who also runs a holiday let business near Kenmore, Perthshire , with her husband Roland, 65, got the New Zealand Kuni Kuni pigs, then aged six months, four years ago from a farming acquaintance of her brother-in-law who was downsizing.

‘I’d seen them on the Internet and I’d been thinking about getting them. I put them in the back of my Renault Kanga van with some straw. It took seven and a half hours to drive from Northumberland. They squeaked and squealed and tried to jump into the front. When we arrived they escaped and it took four of us seven hours to catch them. They like escaping and climbing. They can find a hole in anything.’

Mrs Kennedy decided to train Coco and Gigi after a friend said pigs were very clever and enjoyed learning.She said: ‘They know their names – if I shout for Coco, she’ll come first if they are not both together. They are also trained to lie down. When they have had their food or their treat, and you say to lie down they’ll lie down.

‘I can get them to roll over and they absolutely love having their tummies rubbed. They’ll fall on top of each other and make the most wonderful kind of purring noise. They are so sweet, they really are.

‘When they are sitting nice and content after food, you can say to them: ‘give us a kiss,’ and they’ll put their snouts up to you.

‘But I always treat them with caution and respect – see what kind of mood they’re in.’

Coco and Gigi love munching on fruit – including melon, apples, pears, plums, pineapples, oranges, satsumas and bananas – as well as carrots, salad and tomatoes. But they turn their snouts up at lemons, onions and leeks.

Mrs Kennedy added: ‘I thought they’d eat bracken, nettles and docks - but they don’t eat any of these things. They were quite naughty for the first two years but not now.

‘Kunis aren’t supposed to dig, but they dig, though they aren’t so bad now. They also demolished a wall.’The pigs - Coco is black with faint fudge spots, Gigi slightly smaller and fudge-coloured with black spots - live in a sty in a three-acre field where they frolic happily and enjoy chasing each other.

Mrs Kennedy said: ‘Pigs are very sociable and they love having company. They are a great source of entertainment for the guests and they really do enjoy them. It adds another, rather odd, dimension to their holiday. Many of them give Coco and Gigi their scraps and so the pigs have taken to sitting down as soon as they see a guest coming.

‘Now it feels like I’ve always had them. They can’t bear to be parted, although they do squabble over food.’However Mrs Kennedy admits not everyone has fallen under the pigs’ spell - namely her husband.

‘He thinks they’re a total waste of time and money. They do make such a mess.’

We celebrated National Dog Day last month, so check out our readers' pictures of their adorable pups.